Posts Tagged survival forum
Panic buying before a disaster
When the public has and kind of advanced warning of a disaster – such as a hurricane or pandemic disease – people go into a panic buying mode. Keep this one thing in mind – if you do not have it before the panic buying kicks in, you will not be able to get it.
These images were taken as Hurricane Ike was approaching the Texas coast in September of 2008.
Panic Buying
The list of items that disappears off the shelf first is rather short, but still long. It includes canned foods, bottled water, camp stoves and camp stove fuel, bread, flashlights, and other odd and end items.
The image to the left shows the camp stove selection at a local store right before Hurricane Ike made landfall in 2008. There were only a couple of stoves and just a little fuel left on the shelves. When this picture was taken, the hurricane was still 2 – 3 days from landfall. People were buying just about any kind of camp stove, lantern and fuel they could get their hands on.
Its important to mention that people had buggies loaded down with charcoal for their outdoor grill. It it cooked, or could be used to cook, people were buying it up.
Questions about survival gear
If you have a question about survival gear, then visit the survival gear forum.
Regardless if your looking for candles, flashlights, bug out bags (BOBs), alice packs, molle packs, or anything else, the community is there to help you. It does not matter what kind of disaster your preparing for – whether its a hurricane, plague or nuclear strike, its important to have the gear to help you and your family get through the event.
Lets start things off with a few example topics:
Plans for 2009
As I look back 0n 2008, I also look forward to 2009.
Over the past few months I have not been my usual self. Korey (my son) got a deer this hunting season, and so far that is all we have gotten is that one deer. Tomorrow is the last day of regular deer season, in 2 weeks there is a youth weekend. Hopefully between tomorrow and the youth weekend Korey or I will be able to get another deer. This will fill our freezer for the coming year.
January – my wife and I planted a bed of onions. I bought the onion sprouts 2 weeks ago but have not felt like planting them. The onions were a mix of 10-15Y and some smaller green onions for salads and baked potatoes.
10-15Y are a large onion developed by Texas A&M. When the bulb is ready to be harvested, it will be about the size of a baseball. These onions have a sweet taste and are good for putting on hamburgers.
February – Potatoes go in the ground around February 14th. My wife and I already have to seed potatoes in the shed.
This is also one of the months that I like to go camping.
Plant a couple of apple and peach trees.
The winner of the presidential election is
I would like to be the first to announce the winner of todays election, and its Twiddle Dumb. Lets all give him a warm welcome as our new Supreme Leader.
Under his reign you can expect 4 more years of:
Higher taxes
The continued bail out of the banking system
The continued bail out of wall street
Oil companies reporting record profits – while consumers pay record prices
More unemployment – which is caused by
More free trade
No national health insurance
No caps on medical expenses
Protection for companies against law suits
Regardless of whether you voted for mccain or obama, you are going to get 4 more years of the same ole stuff.
Day Hike in October
On October 4th, 2008 my son and I went on a day hiking trip. Before we left the truck I got out the Garmin GPS and the topo maps and saved the truck as a waypoint. We also brought along a rifle for protection against wild hogs, snakes and coyotes. Bears have been reported in the area, so we had to keep those in mind as well.
We then hiked to a local creek and had lunch with eversafe meals – which are kinda like MREs. On the way back to the truck, the batteries started going out in the GPS. So the batteries were swapped out and we got back on track.
When using a GPS its important to have spare batteries. That is one reason why I try to pick devices that use AA batteries. Whether its a flashlight, or a digital camera, keep in mind ways that these items can be used to help each other out. If the batteries in the GPS go dead, take the batteries out of the camera. But its difficult to do that when the camera uses a Lithium Ion battery, instead of AA.
While on the hiking trip, several deer scraps were spotted. This let my son and I know that the bucks were getting ready to go into rut. Hopefully we will have a good deer season.
If you have any comments about this article, or video – please post them in the forum. Visit this link to go to the Wilderness survival, hiking and camping forum.
Barricaded store fronts during a disaster
When some type of disaster occurs, the owners of a store will take measures to protect their business and their property. A lot of places like wal-mart will stack bales of compressed cardboard in front of the doors.
These blocks of compressed cardboard act as a barricade to help stop people from driving cars or trucks through the front doors. Most of the time the front doors of these large stores will be made of glass – which offer little to no protection from a car or truck. During the Rodney King riots, some store owners also used these blocks of cardboard as bullet stops. Its kinda difficult for a bullet to penetrate 3 – 4 feet of compressed cardboard. The store owners were able to band together behind these blocks of cardboard, and stop the crowds of looters from destroying their stores .
This video was filmed just before Hurricane Ike made landfall in Galveston, Texas.
This video shows a real life example of some of the measures that store owners will take to protect their property. This is not a fault of the store owner, the items inside the store is their property and they have the right to defend it.
These bundles of cardboard are best moved by a forklift, or wrap a chain around it and drag it to the desired location with a truck or car. Even though it weighs several hundred pounds, it is not too difficult to move with a little help. If hand power must be used to move the bundle of cardboard, use jacks to get it off the ground, then get some pipes under the block. Then just roll the block on top of the pipes.